The Artist

Mado Peña (Alicante, 1982) is an up-and-coming, critically acclaimed Spanish comics artist and illustrator. Early in her childhood, she knew that drawing and storytelling would be the only things she could never stop doing. At that time, her tales were mostly about horses and alternate endings for Walt Disney movies.

Despite a five-year Fine Arts Degree, it wasn’t until 2008, when she met the independent editor Santi Navarro, that she started to pursue a career as a comics artist. Knowing that she had barely drawn any comics pages but struck by her dynamic imagery, he gave her the opportunity to illustrate an eight-page graphic story titled “Like a Virgin” after Madonna’s song (He thought that “Mado,” short for “Maria Dolores,” was in fact a short for “Madonna”). She completed the story, which was published in an all-female artists anthology titled “Ellas son Únicas” (Nobanda, 2009). After that first publishing experience, Santi passed away due to cancer. Mado entered the Escola Joso School of Comics determined to make the expectations of her editor and friend come true and become the professional comics artist he believed she could be.

Now Mado is a teacher at the Escola Joso in Barcelona, and her illustrations and short comics stories are receiving great reviews. Her growing credits include working as a colorist for the best-selling “Sherlock Holmes y la Conspiración de Barcelona,” published by Norma Ed, Spain’s top comics publisher. Her most praised work, “A Stuffed Bunny in Doll-Land,” written by Anya Martin, appeared in the massively successful Womanthology: Heroic (IDW, 2011), and she and Anya are developing a full graphic novel sequel which will begin at this Website soon.